


Rewards

by mortalitasi



Category: Neverwinter Nights
Genre: F/M, Romance, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 08:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3843307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Underdark may be terrifying, and the Valsharess may be trying to take over the entire world, and she <i>may</i> be close to succeeding, but there are good comforts left if you know where to look.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewards

**Author's Note:**

> ive had this sitting in my hard drive for a week or two so i finally finished it up and spat it out. these two kill me ughhhh. i also give up on formatting properly because this site fucking hates me. it's fine in my word processor. just ignore any weird alien-looking bloops. i'll fix them eVENTUALLY

Blast and damnation.  
  
Valen pulls at the puzzle box in his hand, but it is no nearer to giving up to his determination than it was a few seconds ago. It's a pretty thing, lacquered and shiny and made up of little segmented parts that fit together beautifully—it  _is_ a puzzle box, after all. And though he usually enjoys them, mind-games, riddles, and such, this one is beyond him, and it has been since they left the barren purple plains to the west of Lith My'athar.  
  
He will  _not_ sleep until he's moved at least a single segment into unlocking.  
  
“What's inside will destroy itself if you damage the box,” says the voice of the Seer-proclaimed Savior, and he looks up to the ranger who's restringing her longbow by the fire.  
  
“ It'll  _what_ ?”  
  
“That's how they work, these contraptions,” she continues, distractingly running her hand down the length of the bow. He blinks at the movement before recapturing his previous train of thought.  
  
“ It's nigh-impossible to solve,” he growls, and his grip tightens on the box—then slackens when he remembers what she just told him. “I've been fiddling with this for  _hours_ .”  
  
Palieth gives him a wry smile, not quite a full one, but it's enough to dimple her cheek and flash him a row of near-predatory teeth.  
  
“Yes, I've noticed,” she says dryly. “It's a Thayan Enigma.”  
  
“A...”  
  
“ Thay. A society of magic-loving supremacist slavers who adore puzzles and racial  _purity_ . It's more of segregation, really.”  
  
He frowns. The concept of it sounds familiar. “Are you sure they're not drow?”  
  
That draws a snort out of her. “The Red Wizards would have a lot to say about the upper echelons of drow matriarchy. They have a lot to say about  _everything_ .”  
  
“How helpfully informative of them,” Valen murmurs. “They sound exceedingly amiable.”  
  
She does something that looks like a hybrid of a nod and a shrug. “Depends on who you ask. The last Red Wizard I met tried to seduce me. When that didn't work, she put me in shackles... and when  _that_ didn't work, she tried to melt my face off with a fireball. Charming woman—but far more tolerable after she was relieved of her head.”  
  
Another blink, this time of surprise. He hasn't heard her speak that much in one go since—well, since she first arrived here. He clears his throat. “Remind me to never try something similar.”  
  
Her second smile is fuller, and sharp with an edge of... he doesn't know what. But it makes his stomach flutter.  
  
“Oh, I don't know,” she starts thoughtfully. “I wouldn't be worried. I wager you'd have more success than her.”  
  
She wagers he'd—that he... that he... Valen swallows roughly, eyes wide, heat creeping up his neck. He prays it won't reach his cheeks, and thanks all gods in existence that he has something to do with his hands. Or, rather, that he has something to  _pretend_ to be doing with his hands. He looks down at the puzzle box like it's an alien creature, focusing particularly hard on the intricate, unintelligible designs inside the carefully-carved borders of the wood.  
  
“Chains don't appeal to me,” he finally forces out, and barely managing at that.  
  
“ It doesn't have to involve any,” she assures him, like she's confirming that the rock in the Underdark is, indeed, very purple. She smirks. “Not at first, anyway.”  
  
The box nearly slips from his hands. “ _My lady_ .”  
  
And then she does what she hasn't done before, at least not in response to  _him_ . She laughs, but not mockingly, just light, easy laughter, the kind you hear in the presence of a friend, uninhibited and without restraint. It changes her, changes her entire face, transforms her from grim solemnity to—lovely radiance. Warmth builds in him, strange but not unwelcome, and he can't even bring himself to feel bad for her laughing in his expense. Not when it's like this. She stops after the direwolf glares at her irritably from his place near the campfire, obviously disturbed. Deekin continues snoring, lost in total oblivion. The kobold sleeps like the dead.  
  
“General, you are far too easy to fluster,” she says, still smiling toothily.  
  
“ I suppose you enjoy it greatly,” he grumbles. The topic of the puzzle box seems so far away now. He doesn't know whether he should be  _grateful_ for that, or...  
  
“I apologize,” Palieth amends, holding up one hand in a show of peace. “It's not my usual way. It's just...”  
  
“Me?” he supplies, and she grins.  
  
“Yes. It's just you.”  
  
“ _That's_ comforting,” Valen says through the return of that annoying flutter in his stomach.  
  
The Savior regards him for a moment before standing and leaving her bow aside in favor of breaching the space and sitting by him on the spread of his bedroll. He watches her with a mix of trepidation and quizzical interest as she crosses her legs and then opens her hands to him, palms-up and cupped together. She's tiny compared to him, so small and wiry, her face open and honest but closed and sharp, the almond cut of her eyes wide and dark against her skin. She's so close he can count every single ridiculously long eyelash, and see the defined curve of the bow of her lips.  
  
“Well?” she says, and that startles him out of his observations.  
  
“Well...?”  
  
“The puzzle, General,” she reminds him, somewhat playfully. “A truce. Let me help. I've solved one of these before.”  
  
He chuckles. “Of course you have,” he says with a measure of disbelief. “Is there a single thing you  _can't_ do?”  
  
“More than just the one,” Palieth answers quietly. “The box?”  
  
He gives it to her, his shoulders tensing when his fingers brush against hers—her skin is always cool, a shock compared to the endless heat of his infernal blood.  
  
She turns it over in her hands, appraising it with a cold clinicality that's characteristic of her, barely blinking. It's easy to forget there's a woman behind the mind—too easy. And he forgot it quite a bit in the beginning. She looks at the left side of the box, lets the gleam of the fire catch on the shiny side, and then sighs shortly.  
  
“Where did you find this, again?” she says, raking back the soft spill of her fringe with impatient fingers.  
  
“In a chest somewhere by the duergar outpost,” he informs her.  
  
“Ah, yes, the unfortunate camp that went up in flames,” Palieth mutters. Her voice is thick with mock regret. “Such hospitable inhabitants, too.”  
  
“Truly... if your idea of hospitable rests on the edge of an ax.”  
  
“They shan't be missing this, then,” she says lightly. “Doesn't seem like they had much success with it, either. I suspect they must have gotten this off of some slave or Thayan  _merchant_ .” The way she says the last word implies a pair of quotation marks of generous size.  
  
“Are they valuable? On the surface, I mean.”  
  
She sniffs, considering his question. The firelight is bathing her in an orange-golden glow that's turning her skin to burnished copper—it's unlike anything he's ever seen. She's stripped down to her leathers tonight, foregoing her ranger's armor in favor of lounging around in trousers and an odd, sleeveless shirt that seems to be made of two parts—it wraps around her like some sort of doublet, and ties off at her side. Perhaps it's a normal garment where she comes from. He's so used to the skin-tight, striking garb of the drow matrons and sisters that seeing her dressed in dull greens and browns is a strange, but not entirely unappreciated switch. She prefers utility over beauty, and yet there's a wonderful economy to her, from the slope of her woven leggings to the arcing lines of her bare upper arms, so strikingly simple—so strikingly pretty.  
  
“ Most people like to pretend Thay and its never-ending quest for world domination does not exist,” Palieth starts slowly. “It's easy to ignore what you cannot see, no? They have not seen the towers of Eltabbar, or the squalor of the slums. The boxes  _do_ have value, logically, of course. It's just not recognized—out of ignorance, or shame, or perhaps... wilfulness.  _Thay_ is more of a curse than a name on the tongues of others, even though they don't know what they're invoking. As usual.”  
  
He watches her carefully. “You speak like you've been there.”  
  
She smiles just for a second. “Do I? Hmm.”  
  
He's used to her evasive non-answers by now. The woman could talk stone into weeping. Shame she doesn't speak much in general. He wouldn't mind listening. Not that he'd admit that. Either way, he'll take the bait.  
  
“Was it beautiful?”  
  
“ It was,” she says, and the frankness takes him aback. He'd expected avoidance, not straightforwardness. Then again, when has she ever done what he expects her to? “The masonry, the art, the music, the  _food—_ all exquisite. It was like a dream. A terrible, terrible dream.”  
  
“Not a place you'd revisit, I take it,” he guesses.  
  
“This was a very long time ago,” Palieth informs him. “At least it would be, to a human.”  
  
He can't help the twinge of curiosity. “ _How_ long?”  
  
“ A hundred and... sixteen? No. A hundred and fifteen years ago,” she says with a sigh. “The one who hosted me is probably dead, if he hasn't turned to lichdom.  _Good_ .”  
  
Valen nearly gulps. He didn't exist a hundred and fifteen years ago—he wasn't even a speck on the cosmos' plan for existence, and neither was his mother. Or his grandmother. The surprise must show on his face, because she crosses her legs and chuckles.  
  
“You're not going to offer me a walking stick, are you?”  
  
“ You need a walking stick as much as the Underdark needs more  _rock_ ,” he answers gruffly, and that gets another small laugh out of her. “You—look well. For...”  
  
“For a woman my age?” she supplies, and his responding grimace makes her grin. “I'm not offended, I know what you mean. Thank you.”  
  
_Yes, but I am_ , he thinks to himself. Offended with the way he seems to lose every inkling of composure around her. What a mess. He doesn't even  _know_ how old she is—does he want to? No, no good thinking about it. He must turn the conversation away from this tangle of humiliations. Hells, the box. How has the topic strayed so very far from the damned box?  
  
“You're welcome,” he says, more out of reflex than anything else.  
  
“But this isn't about me,” she interrupts as though she can read his mind. Perhaps she can. “Come here and I'll show you the trick.”  
  
His heart stutters at the thought of getting closer to her. They're already almost touching, knees just about bumping, and he's hesitant, but her expression brooks no argument. He shuffles across the length of the bedroll to come nearer—to get a good look at the box, he tells himself, trying not to focus on the scent of her, leather and salt and the sharp smell of the surfacer herbs she keeps pressed between her clothes. If he were to lean forward, just a little, he'd be able to— _no_ . That is absolutely not proper.  
  
“ See the golden lines on every side?” she asks, and he nods, with some difficulty. “You have to make them line up all around the box for it to open... or that's what you  _would_ do, if you wanted to take the long way around.”  
  
“And we will be. Won't we?”  
  
She stares at him, deadpan. “Are you serious?”  
  
It's his turn to smirk now. “Am I ever  _not_ ?”  
  
She releases the breath she's holding in a single rasping swell. “Good point. For Mielikki's sake, General. Do you ever bend the rules?”  
  
“Sometimes. I only wish to see this done as it should be—this accursed thing has certainly avoided justice for long enough.”  
  
Palieth rolls her eyes. “Keep telling yourself that,” she says, and then with a heave she sits back, leaning on the cave wall. “This will take a while, so you may as well make yourself comfortable. Stoke the fire, or something.”  
  
She's most talkative tonight. He finds he doesn't mind it.

 

 

 

…

 

 

 

As the night drags on—though it always seems to be night in the Underdark—the boundaries between them grow lax and eventually dissolve.  
  
She stretches her legs at one point, cracking joints and making numb muscles come back to life, and he tells her she doesn't have to be worried about bothering him. So she looks at him skeptically before making sure she takes up as much space as she can, and at the shocked expression on his face, the enchanted longsword in the scabbard a few yards away sniggers nastily. He glares at it, and then hears what sounds distinctly like a raspberry being blown in his direction. If the sword had a tongue, he'd pull it out—with his hands.  
  
“Feel like retracting your offer yet?” she says sweetly, her elbow poking into his side.  
  
“No,” he bites back. “Slide the fourth cube up and to the left, so you can free the sixth one down.”  
  
“Good call,” she compliments, and does as he instructs.  
  
He does not know how much time has past when finally the last tile slips into place and the entire outer shell of the box stiffens, as though it's the hide of a living thing, and he raises a brow at the hiss of pressurized air shrieking from between the crevices of the latch at the top.  
  
“And done,” Palieth says, sounding rather smug. “Would you like to do the honors?”  
  
Valen cracks the top of the box open carefully as she proffers it to him. The inside is lined with stuffed velvet, sumptuous and altogether expensive, scarlet in color, like the deepest of wines. In the center of the case lies a marvelous pendant on a chain of some whitish metal that he could convince himself is actually glowing. The stone in the setting hanging from that selfsame chain is a dark stone whose surface seems to sparkle with pinpoints of colored light—it reminds him of the night sky in Sigil, bizarre and wonderful all at once, the intriguing sort of splendor you know is dangerous but cannot help admiring anyhow.  
  
Wordlessly, he reaches out and lifts the pendant from its resting place. The metal is cold in his palm.  
  
“A plaque,” he says, tracing the fingers of his other hands over the little shining sign affixed to the bottom of the box's lid. The writing there upon it is nothing he can recognize. Runes? “I cannot read it.”  
  
Palieth tilts her head to the side, thinking. “It's Draconic. A wizard definitely made this. Let's see...”  
  
She'd been able to translate the gibberish outside the Beholders' colony, so why not the tongue of dragons? He stops himself from laughing at the incredulity of it, and instead reaches for the waterskin at his hip. All this thinking's made him thirsty.  
  
“Languages are like ciphers, General,” she says—once again guessing at his thoughts correctly. “The more you learn, the easier it becomes. And I've had time to practice. You could do it, too. The tanar'ri have a good ear for pronunciation. Agile tongues.”  
  
He chokes on the mouthful of water going down his throat, and feels a generous amount of the remaining liquid in the gourd splash him in the face. The Savior blinks at him, slowly, brows rising, while the longsword bursts into another peal of malicious giggling.  
  
“...Are you alright?”  
  
He coughs, hitting his chest with a fist. “Fine. Just fine.”  
  
“ If you say so,” she goes on, though she seems somewhat uncertain of that. “Where was I? Yes. The plaque.” She squints at the tiny runes—they look like illegible scratches and squiggles to him, though they seem to be arranged in a kind of order. She runs her fingertip along the lines as she reads. “' _To whosoever should possess this medallion: take mine creation upon your person, and know the power of fortitude. Fell those who should stand in your way and taste the nectar of anima as it begins anew in you. By the grace of Keldaar Spearshaker, live long and prosper.'_ ”  
  
“He should have been a poet,” Valen says, unimpressed, and then lifts the pendant to eye-level. “If the inscription is right, this must be some sort of... life-stealing charm.”  
  
“The good ones are rather rare,” Palieth informs him, stretching languidly. He imagines sitting still for so long in concentration must have made her feel stiff. He tries not to glance over when her shirt bunches around her waist. “I think it'd look rather fetching on you.”  
  
He makes a face, like he's smelled something unpleasant. “I'm not much for magical trinkets.”  
  
“And I have too many to count already,” she counters, firmly as ever. “With the way you charge off into battle—just keep it, General. It may be of use to you yet.”  
  
He stares at it a moment longer, and then, hesitantly, passes the amulet's chain over his head. Perhaps it's his imagination, but as it rests there beneath his breastplate, nestled near his heart, it grows warm—like a live thing. It's almost unnerving. Valen looks up at her, jaw set firmly.  
  
“Only because you've requested it of me, my lady,” he says. He hopes he can learn to ignore the sensation of the pendant resting there, on him. “Though I cannot say I appreciate the implication that I'm reckless.”  
  
She cocks a brow at him. “You  _aren't_ ? It must have escaped me.” There is no mockery in her tone, and he does not take offense at the sardonic undercurrent there, like he would have when they first met. “But I must admit—it's rather flattering you listened at all. Do you trust my opinion that much?”  
  
He contemplates how she may react if he elaborated on that, so he settles for saying, shortly, “Yes.”  
  
_If you only knew_ how _much..._

 


End file.
